Thread by @garius

This is another solid reminder. If you've never seen Rod Hull and Emu on the Tonight Show with Richard Pryor and Johnny Carson you're missing out.

You need the FULL INTERVIEW though. Not just the Pryor moment. It's here:

https://twitter.com/jwerstein/status/1443543178511060995

Did an awful lot of research onto the background of this appearance for the article i never wrote on Rod Hull/Emu and the fridge-throw

Something to note: this was Pryor's first TV interview since his near-death accident. Everyone around him was walking on metaphorical eggshells.

Pryor insisted he was fine (although he was heavily scared under the layers of makeup), but was still struggling to get himself back into a normal place (or as normal as it ever got for him).

Enter Emu, stage right.

If you've seen the END of the clip (I won't spoil it) then you know precisely how much Rod Hull respected the studio's instructions to ALSO walk on metaphorical eggshells around Richard.

You can almost see it on screen, where everyone kinda freezes for a second and watches Richard. Until they realise he's LAUGHING and leaning into it.

After the show, Richard Pryor sought out Rod Hull. Hull thought he was going to hit him for breaking the studio's instructions.

Pryor just smiled, shook his real hand and fake-dodged Emu again.

"You've got one of the funniest acts I've ever seen." He told Hull. "Man... you've got guts."

Then walked off, chuckling to himself.

Tune in next week, fans of finding out that old comedy guy you thought was silly is actually pretty hardcore!

Then I'll tell you about how Les Dennis was the guy who had to go on and cover after Tommy Cooper had his (ultimately) fatal heart attack live on stage.